Daily Egyptian Managing Editor

SIUC on-campus enrollment dropped 105 students compared to spring 1997, but administrators explain the drop by pointing out that 100 more students graduated in December than last year.

Well obviously if you have more students who have graduated then there will be less students who have enrolled here for spring, Walker Allen, director of Admissions and Records, said. It’s a little difficult to say exactly what the relation is, but we estimate about 1700 students finished in December while a year ago about 1600 finished.

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Though on-campus enrollment dropped, overall student enrollment including military bases and other off-campus locations is up 93 students to 20,744 from 20,837 last spring.

I am surprised we are up overall, John Jackson, vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and provost, said. It’s not all that bad news because we had a large graduating class, and students got their sheepskins and are moving on and that is what we are here for.

Allen said another major factor in the on-campus enrollment decline is the continuing drop in international enrollment.

Clearly, we have a lot of work that we need to be doing for international enrollments because, were it not for the loss of international students, it appears to me we would be up in every category, he said.

Total on-campus international undergraduate enrollment decreased 124 to 602. On-campus international graduate student enrollment is up five students from 580.

Allen said the economic turmoil in many Asian countries may also be contributing to the decline.

This is certainly a factor in that international students staying on are not without problems and serious economic challenges for them, he said.

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Administrators are working to caulk the international student enrollment leak by decreasing the cost of out-of state tuition from three times the amount of in-state enrollment to two times.

Allen said allowing students to apply for admission to SIUC via the Internet also will help turn the tide. He said domestic students can already apply online and international students will be able to apply within one week.

Total undergraduate enrollment is up 142 students to 16,867. On-campus undergraduate enrollment is down 40 students to 14,415 compared to spring 1997.

On-campus graduate enrollment is down 57 to 3,253 students from 3,310 last spring. Jackson attributed this partly to graduate program eliminations last year.

We have collapsed, condensed and closed some graduate degrees so that activity is part of the story, Jackson said. You can’t close degrees and not expect to lose some students.

Jackson said the University is stressing retention for the fall and that fall enrollment will likely increase. Last fall enrollment increased 45 students from fall 1996. This marked the first time since 1992 when overall enrollment increased.

We are working so that fall will be a different story, Jackson said. We are still losing too many students and we are trying to address that.

Overall I think its going to be very positive, he said. We are doing well domestically and working to strengthen international recruitment and retention efforts.